In August 2017 I spent two and a half weeks in Australia accompanying my jewelry at a few contemporary jewelry exhibitions and sight seeing.

Through a chain of mutual friends, I made the acquaintance of Emma Field, an emerging contemporary jeweler in Adelaide. She had a solo show at Studio20/17 Project Space and we decided to collaborate on a few pieces to be on display during her show since I would be visiting during her show dates. Emma micro-welds geometric crystalline forms using an instinctive and spontaneous practice, completely different from my own way of working. We each put together a box of unfinished works and sent them over the ocean for the other one to finish. I don't have professional images yet, but one day! These pieces are still in the Southern Hemisphere but I think we need to find an American Venue soon.

Emma and I met each other for the first time and gave a little talk about our process in the gallery. I was still so jet lagged! Thanks to Emma's sister for this picture!

Later in the trip I made my way to Melbourne for Radiant Pavilion, a two-week-long contemporary jewelry festival taking over galleries, museums, coffee shops, and even guerilla-style public performances, all relating to jewelry and adornment. I have had the huge honor of having my work in a traveling group show called "Shared Concerns" with Melissa Cameron, Aran Galligan, Jill Hermans, Dan DiCaprio, Vincent Pontillo-Verrastro, Lynn Batchelder, and Kaori Juzu. Back in January 2016 the eight of us participated in a group residency at the Penland School of Crafts where we started the work together that would travel in this exhibition. Each of us was asked to distill our practice down to one word, which was put in a hat and distributed to another participant to inform the work that they would make for the show. I contributed "sprawl" and received "time," which I interpreted as growth and decay in reference to urban environments. You can see this work in my portfolio here. We have shown in North Carolina and California in the States, and Canberra and here at Bini Gallery in Melbourne.

​Attending the opening during Radiant Pavilion was the initial reason for the Australia visit, and I was so pleased to be able to spend quality time with my friends Melissa and Jill. They even took me to see wombats and eat meat pies! See more images from my trip on instagram.